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HON. THOMAS GIBBS MORGAN, 

President of the Whig Coiivention, of the Second Congressional 

District in the State of Louisiana, convened at the Town 

of Baton Rouge, on the 20th of January, 1840, 



PRINTED BY J. OIDBON. JFR<, WASHINOTOiC. 



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LETTER. 



Washington City, March 6, 1840. 

Hon. Thos. Gibbs Morgan, Chairman, S^c. 

Dear *S'/>,— Your letter of January 22d, enclosing the proceed- 
ings of a Whig Convention, composed of Delegates from the Se- 
cond Congressional District, assembled at the town of Baton Rouge, 
for the purpose of selecting a candidate for Congress, to receive the 
support of the Whig party at the ensuing election, and informing 
me that I was unanimously nominated for re-election, and that you 
were deputed to communicate the intelligence to me, and request 
my acceptance of the nomination, has been before me some time. 

Acknowledging, with pride and pleasure, this new mark of the 
kindness and confidence of my friends throughout the District, and 
deeply sensible of the honor thus conferred upon me, I most sin- 
cerely regret that considerations of duty to myself and my constitu- 
ents, compel me to decline the nomination. 

Your letter found me on a bed of sickness, from which I have 
not yet entirely recovered. At this time, I am confined to my 
room, and unable to attend the sittings of the House of Representa- 
tives ; and I am admonished from day to day, that the climate here 
is of such a character, as to unfit me for the faithful and efficient 
discharge of my public duties, and certainly to render it unsafe, as 
regards my future health, to remain any longer than is required by 
my already incurred obligations to you. Howe\'er anxious I might 
otherwise be to continue in your service, I should be inexcusai.iy 
wanting in that frankness and candor which, I trust, have al^vays 
chara(5lerized my conduct, both public and private, were I not to 
apprise you of my deliberate conviction on this point ; and, under 
the circumstances, I cannot but hope that my personal and politi- 
cal friends will not only excuse, but approve, the course which I 
have felt myself imperiously compelled to adopt 



In thus decliiHijtr to be presented to ray feilow-citizeus again as 
a candidate for this station, and a^ssuniing the attitude, so far as 
^fieir future suffrages are concerned, of a private citizen, I deem it 
a proper occasion to address them on subjects of great interest and 
importance to them, and to the whole country. And, in doing so, 
they will give, I am sure, full credit to the declaration that I have 
no personal ends to accomplish, and no private griefs to assuage, 
which could, in the remotest degree, bias my views of political 
questions. 

As one of yourselves, then, fellow-citizens, having a common 
interest with you in the welfare of our country, the permanence of 
our republican institutions, and in all the blessings of a pure, up- 
right, dignified, and beneficent administration of tfie General Gov- 
ernment, I speak to you, and 1 now declare my solemn conviction, 
that we have arrived at such a crisis, that it becomes the highest 
social and moral obligation of every patriotic citizen, to use all fair 
and honorable means to remove the men who are at the head of 
affairs, from the places they have dishonored and abused. 

To pass over, for the present, the alleged corruptions and abuses 
in every department of the public service, the men in power have, 
in my judgment, proved themselves destitute of the first requisites 
of statesmen, and entirely incompetent to the discharge of the du- 
ties of their exalted stations. For abundant and conclusive evi- 
dence of this, we need only look at the present condition of our 
country, weighed down by the accumulated mischiefs brought 
upon it by the Experimenters and Spoilsmen, and contrast it with 
our situation a (ew years ago. Then we had a currency not only 
equal to gold and silver, but for all the commercial purposes of our 
vastly-extended country, infinitely better. Then we had about 
half the number of Banks that now exist, and they were restrained 
in their issues, by a National Institution, which kept them within 
the sphere of safety and usefulness. Then labor, industry, and en- 
terprise received its reward, and the poor man such a compensation 
for his toil, that, by proper, well-directed, and persevering exertions, 
he could gradually open the path to comparative ease, to a compe- 
tency, and even to wealth. All the great interests of the country 
were in the highest state of prosperity. The triumphs of agricul- 
ture wer j displayed over the whole land ; our commerce covered 
every sea, and poured wealth into the public treasury,, while it 



showered benefits upon all our people ; our manufactures flour- 
ished, and were daily increasini]^ in value and importance. Peace, 
contentment, plenty, and happiness were everywhere diffused : and 
if, among all the nations the sun shines upon, there was one de- 
serving the title bestowed by an illustrious British statesman, of 
''the envy and admiration of the world," that nation was the Uni- 
ted iStates. 

But how changed is the aspect now ! Commerce prostrated — 
Credit ruined — the prices of all agricultural products reduced — 
Manufactures languishing — Wages in every branch of occupation 
lowered — and multitudes of hardy, sober, industrious men asking 
for work, and for the means of gaining a tolerable subsistence. 
The wide spread distress and ruin are marked in the counte- 
nances of most of those we meet with, whether from the North, 
South, East, or West. Among the causes of this extraordinary 
and lamentable change, may be justly designated, as by far the 
most productive, the war so long and so ruthlessly carried on 
against the currency and the banking institutions of the country. 
It happened that the President and Directors of the late Bank of 
the United States would not become the supple partisans and tools 
of Gen. Jackson, and those who had sway in his councils, and 
according to the maxim of the (Cabinet of that day, and also of the 
present — that those who are not for them, heart and soul, and body, 
unthinking, unscroupulous, obedient servants, are against them, 
the Bank was proscribed as an enemy. It was consequently 
doomed to the full measure of vengence, which the Executive 
meted out on the avowed principle of '-punishing his enemies and 
rewarding his friends." It went down ! — and let it never be for- 
gotten, that it went down in opposition to the views and wishes 
of Congress, and of the people themselves. A bill to rechartcr this 
valuable institution passed both branches of Congress— but it was 
vetoed by the President, whose whole iniiuence, backed by the 
patronage and power of the Executive department, and aided by 
an overwhelming personal popularity, was for a long time, singly, 
steadily, and perseveringly directed to its destruction. The Bank 
had been the depository of the public money for many years, and 
the government never lost a dollar by it ! General Jackson upon 
his own responsibility and without lawful authority, withdrew the 
public deposites from the National Institution, and placed 'hem in 



charge of State Banks, and, through his Secretary of the Treasury, 
advised and urged those State Banks to lend freely from these 
public deposites. About the same period the chartering of numer- 
ous banks in every state in the Union was strenuously urged by 
the Administration and its friends on the avowed ground that they 
would be necessary to meet the exigencies which would certainly 
result from winding up the affairs of the National Bank. In obe- 
dience to orders from Head (Quarters, the partisans and supporters 
of the Administration, who had majorities in most of the State Le- 
gislatures, went to work, and in the course of three or four years, 
chartered more than three hundred State Banks. Many of these 
new born institutions went into operation without possessing a safe 
and proper specie basis. Yet they discounted liberally and prodi- 
gally on the public money, (according to directions from the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury by the command of the President himself.) 
Hundred and thousands of persons, and especially the brawling 
partisans of the Administration obtained with facility, large sums, 
more indeed than some of them knew what to do with, or how to 
employ advantageously. Then it was that speculation was push- 
ed to its utmost verge — then it was that every scheme and project, 
however wild and visionary, found men ready to embark in it, and 
money in abundance to be invested for its prosecution. The rage 
was unbounded and universal. Thousand of honest sober, indus- 
trious men, who had previously been examples of prudence and 
steady, patient exertions, and obtained as the rewards of their toil, 
the means of peaceful and contented enjoyment, were seized with 
the fever of speculation that pervaded the land — abandoned the 
habits of frugality and labor, to which they had been accustomed, 
and aimed at getting rich by speculating in lands, houses, lots, and 
every thing else that presented itself. All went on swimingly for 
ft year or two, and to a superficial observer, there -appeared no end 
lo our career of National and individual prosperity. 

But these pleasing visions quickly vanished. The Administra- 
tration discovered that their favorite pet banks, on which the public 
money was so profusely lavished, were not safe depositories, and 
that many of them were not even so honest as they had expected. 
These very institutions were accordingly denounced in every 
quarter, by the very men who had clamoured for the destruction 
of the National Ba.nk, and had promised that they would supply 



its place, and furnish a better currency! The famous specie cir- 
cular of July 1830, was issued, requiring all the Government dues, 
to be paid in gold or silver — and operating as a protest by the 
Government of the paper of the best banks. Accusations, contu- 
mely, and insult, were, day after day, hurled by the Government 
and all its mercenary hirelings and agents against their former 
"pets;" and the result of this continued and systematic warfare, 
was the suspension of specie payments by the banks, in 1837, 
which was followed by general pressure and distress among the 
people. 

Since that period, the party in power have shut their eyes to 
the wants, and closed their ears against the cries of the community. 
At the very session of Congress called by President Van Buren to 
devise some remedy for the accumulated mischiefs luider which, 
the Administration was suffering, he had the effrontery to reply to 
the people's demands for relief, that " communities are apt to look 
to Government for too much," and that the Government must take 
care of itself, and the people of themselves. No measure of relief, 
of hope, or consolation is held out to the country. A national bank 
cannot be chartered with my sanction, says the President, because 
it is unconstitutional. Washington, Adams, Madison, and Monroe 
thought otherwise, and acted otherwise. I might add to their 
authority that of Chief Justice Marshall, and of almost every emi- 
nent statesman and lawyer of whom our country can boast. You, 
fellow citizens, I am sure, have more confidence in the arguments 
of these illustrious men ; and, perhaps, it would not be too much 
to say, in their example and practice, without argument, than in 
the new fangled dogmas of the partisan political adventurers of this 
day, who owe all their consequence to a series of successful in- 
trigues and petty tricks. 

We are to have no national bank, then, so long as the ascendancy 
of the men now at the head of affairs continues. For, although 
Congress might charter one, the President has told us, in effect, that 
he would veto any bill lor that object. As a substitute for the sound 
and uniform paper currency which the country enjoyed while the 
national bank was in existence, an exclusive metallic currency was 
proposed by the Administration and its friends. " Hard money !" 
was the cry : and every thing was to come down to that standard. 
No intelligent man, of any party, can really believe that a currency 
of gold and silver would enable the people of this great and exten- 



sive country to carry on successfully their commercial operations 
with advantaofes commensurate with the fair and legitimate value 
<>){ the products of the soil. There is not, in the whole country, one- 
fourth of the specie necessary to the daily demands of business and 
trade. 

Besides, the value of property, before these hard money doctrines 
were promulgated, and attempted to be acted upon, was fixed by a 
paper currency : and that paper currency, as I have said, was, in a 
great measure, fastened upon us by the Administration. Men of 
prudence, and of the utmost caution, have incurred debts under the 
expectation that both property and labor would remain without 
much variation in regard to prices. Would it then be fair, would 
it be just, would it be consistent with sound policy, in the Admin- 
istration, to adopt such a course as must inevitably reduce both 
property and labor to half their present value, and leave the debtor 
at the mercy of his creditor ? 

The incompetency of the Administration, to which I have already 
referred, is most strikingly illustrated by the course pursued in re- 
gard to its leading and most distinctive measure — the Sub-Treasury 
scheme. Finding its series of financial experiments successively 
fail, the Administration brought forward, as " a measure of safety 
and deliverance," the Sub-Treasury. Its authors and advocates 
omitted no occasion to extol the wisdom and beneficence of the plan. 
Pass the bill, said they, and the public monies will be safe, and the 
country once more be restored to prosperity and peace. 

The character of this bill has been so frequently and thoroughly 
discussed, that I deem it unnecessary to dwell upon it here. You, 
fellow-citizens, and the people of every section, considered its pro- 
visions, and its inevitable tendency ; and you know that three times 
in succession the bill has been condenmed by the imperative deci- 
sion of the people's voice, as well as by their independent represen- 
tatives in the more popular branch of Congress. The Executive 
and his partizans, however, instead of conforming to the public will 
thus unequivocally expressed; instead of relenting in his course of 
warfare on the liberties and prosperity of the country, announced 
his determination to persevere with this tyrannical and destructive 
measure ; and, at last, by the unscrupulous violation of purity and 
independence of the elective franchise ; by the interference of his 
.office-holders, agents, and emissaries ; by lavishing the public mo- 



ney lor purposes of bribery and corruption ; by force and fraud ; by 
committing an unparalelled outrage on all law, precedent, and right, 
in the case of the New Jersey representation, he and his partizans 
succeeded in bringing to the House of Representatives a majority 
favorable to the Sub-Treasury system. 

Early in the session the Senate passed this bill, and sent it to the 
House of Representatives ; and there this great " untried expedient," 
which the President and the whole party proclaimed would be the 
fruitful source of unnumbered blessings, which was so long the 
grand issue before the nation ; which was urged on the ground of 
pressing and immediate necessity, lay on the Speaker's table for 
more than two months, without one of its friends proposing even to 
give it the ordinary reference to the proper standing committee. 
When it was referred, the Committee of Ways and Means kept it 
buried in their room for some time before they reported it back to 
the House : and now, in the fourth month of the session, the bill 
has not yet been brought up for examination and discussion. Does 
the Administration begin to fear that this expedient will be as un- 
successful and disastrous as the experiments on the currency alrea- 
dy tried, which resulted in the disgrace of the authors, and the ruin 
of the best interests of the country ? Or does the President, at last, 
begin to dread the consequences to himself and his party, of persist- 
ing in this course of riotous experimenting ? Has he thought it 
prudent to forbear his destructive hand until the spring elections 
are over 1 

The history of the financial administration of those in power is 
a record of continual blunders and impostures. In his last annual 
message, the President told the nation, in effect, that the Treasury 
was amply provided with means to satisfy all the legitimate demands 
upon it. In the annual report from the Treasury Department, 
which accompanied the message, the Secretary went further, and 
even indulged in a self-complacent and congratulatory tone, when 
speaking of the flourishing condition of the finances which he pre- 
sented. The people were given to understand distinctly and pre- 
cisely that no deficit would occur, unless in two contingencies — the 
failure of the banks to pay the balances due to the Government, and 
the making appropriations beyond the estimates. The second con- 
tingency has not yet occurred. Congress has not exceeded the es- 
timates. The first has not happened, in full extent ; for one-third 



10 

of the bank balances has been paid; and the whole amount was 
only about $800,000. 

Yet, fellow citizens, in less than two months after these declara- 
tions were made, and before Congress had appropriated a single 
dollar, except for the pay of the members, the President sent ano- 
ther message to Congress, asking that the resources of the Govern- 
ment should be strengthened by five millions of dollars ; and inti- 
mating that it might be necessary, before the adjournment of Con- 
gress, to make another application for a like sum. Do not these 
simple facts prove that the President and Secretary were either ab- 
solutely ignorant of the condition of the Treasury, or that they act- 
ed with the base motive of gulling and deceiving the people, until 
their need forced them to disclose its impoverished condition? In 
this case, they must take one horn of the dilemma or the other. 
They must acknowledge either that they were grossly ignorant, or 
that they were guilty of a deliberate attempt at imposition. 

The Treasury Note bill, which, in fact and substance, was sim- 
ply a proposition to borrow five millions of dollars, was 
brought forward by the President's financial organ in the House, 
the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means ; was passed 
through both Houses, and made a law of the land, on the ground 
of the positive and pressing immediate necessities of the Adminis- 
tration. This is in all respects a new public debt, incurred to pro- 
vide for the payment of a pre-existing debt. For, fellow-citizens, 
be it known to you that the Government has been in debt from the 
first year of the Administration of Martin Van Buren down to 
the present moment. The Treasury Note bill, passed at the extra 
session called by President Van Buren, created a public debt 
which has never been repaid but by borrowing. For the last three 
years, the expenditures of Government have exceeded the income 
by between seven and eight millions of dollars ! 

How has it happened, you may well ask, that the Government 
has become thus insolvent ?— -and that there is this deficit in the 
Treasury, which was overflowing in years past? 

The answer is easy and obvious. The expenditures in every 
department of the public service have been carried beyond all 
bounds. New oflices have been created, and large salaries attached 
to them, for the reward of the Executives' partizans and favorties. 
Profu.sion and extravagance have been the order of the day. Many 



11 

of the agents of Government — collectors and receivers — have ap- 
propriated to their own uses, without stint or measure, the public 
money in their hands. Appointed on the atrocious principle 
avowed by the Administration, according^ to which all the offices 
of a great and enlightened country, are to be regarded as " Spoils" 
for distribution among the victors in a party contest, they made the 
most of their opportunities, and became the despoilcrs of the Peo- 
ple's purse. The expenditures of Mr. Van Buren's administration 
during the first three years, amounted to the enormous sum of onk 

HUNDRED AND ELEVEN MILLIONS FOUR HUNDRED AND SIX THOU- 
SAND NINE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE DOLLARS, ($111,406,955.) 

The average for each year of his ascendancy is. thirty-seven 

MILLIONS one HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIVE THOUSAND SIX HUN- 
DRED AND FIFTY-ONE DOLLARS, ($37,135,651.) 

The administration of Mr. Adams was charged with extrava- 
gance, and was displaced by the Party now in power, who came 
in on the ground of retrenchment and reform. But the expenses 
of the whole four years of Mr. Adams's administration were tea 
millions less than one-half of those of Mr. Van Buren's three first 
years. They were a little upwards of fifty millions of dollars in 
the total, and the average for each year was only .$12,575,477. 

Along with this extraordinary increase of expenditures, there 
has been an enormous and steady growth of executive patronage. 
New offices have been unnecessarily created, and agents and other 
subordinates multiplied, year after year. By the abuse of the power 
of appointment and removal, every officer and agent in every branch 
of the public service, from the highest grade to the lowest, is made 
immediately dependent on the will of the President alone, and holds 
his place by the tenure of complete and abject devotedness to the 
master " whose hirelings they are," according to the doctrine of 
the Administration. The offices which belong, in reality, to the 
People, and which ought to be filled by those only who are "honest," 
'•capable," and iaithful to the constitution," have been made the re- 
wards for party services. Men have been retained in situations of 
the highest trusts, and of the greatest emolument to the incumbents, 
long after they were known to the Government to be defaulters, 
solely because they were known to be active and industrious poli- 
ticians, and their exertions were required to sustain the interests of 
the Administration in the States to which they belonged. Since 



12 

the accession of Mr. Van Buren, the standard of qualification for 
oiBce has been reduced even lower than it was during the admin- 
istration of General Jackson. Brawling partizanship and un- 
scrupulous devotion supply the deficiency of all other requisites. 
The odious and abominable principle of proscription for opinion's 
sake, which was first openly avowed and systematically acted upon 
by the party now in power, has been carried tothe utmost extreme. 
No degree of business talents, no measure of experience, no purity 
of life and conduct, no zeal and industry in the performance of 
their duties, have been able to save from the vengeance of the Exe- 
cutive, those public officers who dared to entertain an opinion ad- 
verse to his policy, or who failed to be active in the great business of 
securing the success of his party in elections. Under such a sys- 
tem, it might be expected that the office-holders, in general, would 
possess the character of mercenary retainers, regardless of the great 
interests of the People, and the dignity and honor of the Nation, 
and only anxious for a continuance of the President's approbation 
and favor. 

I have thus, felfow-citizens, noticed some of the abuses and 
corruptions, which seem to me to call loudly on the people for a 
change of Administration. 

Thanks be to Heaven, the day of deliverance from these evils 
appears to be near at hand. Unless I am greatly deceived in the 
evidences of public sentiment, which are borne hither from every 
quarter, there is a movement among the American People in the 
cause of true reform, which will not cease until the Experimenters 
and Spoilsmen are driven from power. The nomination of Wil- 
liam Henry Harrison for the first, and of John Tyler for the 
second office in the gift of the People, has been received with ac- 
clamation by the Opponents of misrule and corruption throughout 
the Union. They have been taken up by the people, and by the 
people they will, 1 confidently beUeve, be borne onward to the high 
stations for which they have been nominated. 

It is due to candor, to say that General Harrison was not my 
first choice for the Presidency. I preferred Henry Clay to all the 
other candidates before the people. I have known him almost from 
my infancy, and have ever regarded him with the highest admira- 
tion, respect, and personal esteem. In all the qualifications for the 
€hief Magistracy of this nation, he is, in my judgment, superior to 



13 

any other raaii. The record of his public services embraces some 
of the brightest chapters in the history of his country, while he ha^ 
carried the fame of an American statesman, legislator, and patriot, 
to the farthest limits of the earth. 

Bat although it was with deep regret that T heard that Henry 
Clay was not presented by the Harrisburg Convention for the suf- 
frages of the opposition party, I never distrusted the wisdom, the 
patriotism, the integrity, and sound political principles of the emi- 
nent citizen who was selected for that high honor. I am well ac- 
quainted with General Harrison personally. I served under his 
immediate command during the last war, and know him to be a 
brave and skilful officer, a true patriot, an enlightened and honest 
statesman, and a man of uprightness and integrity. For near 
fifty years he has been in the public service, and during that time 
has filled many civil and military offices ; and in each and all has 
discharged his duty with honor to himself and advantage to the 
country. Millions of dollars have passed through his hands, and 
every cent has been strictly accounted for. No man has done more 
for his country and received less ; and to this day he labors regu- 
larly for his support and that of his family. 

Bred in a school of the purest republican principles, he has been 
distinguished throughout the whole of his career by a sacred re- 
gard for the constitution and for the rights of the States. A native 
of Virginia, he has a strong attachment to the South ; and we may 
rest assured that, under his administration, our domestic institutions 
will ever find in the General Government a defender against the 
encroachments, and interference, and seditious proceedings of the 
northern fanatics. Upon the subject of abolition, the opinions and 
sentiments of General Harrison are well known to be all that 
the most jealous friend of the South could desire, I have examined 
with scrupulous care the records of his conduct, and his sentiments 
on this vital question ; and I have no hesitation in declaring my 
belief that they entitle him to the entire confidence and the zealous 
support of the southern people. 

His views of all the great political questions of the day have 
been disclosed with that frankness which is one of the remarkable 
traits of his character. They accord with the opinions of the mass 
of the great political party by whom he was designated as a Candi- 
date for the highest office a free people can bestow. His election 



1^ 

will be the signal for the dissolution of the Cabal who have solon^ 
been permitted to oppress the country, and will secure to us a wise, 
patriotic, and dignified Administration, pursuing the best interests 
of the people, and not directing its aims, as is now the case, to the 
aggrandizement of the rulers, and the fulfilment of their ambitious 
schemes. 

I offer no apology for thus freely and candidly addressing my 
fellow-citizens; and, in conclusion, will only repeat that I have ex- 
pressed my sentiments, and the deliberate convictions of my judg- 
ment, uninfluenced by any personal considerations or improper 
motives. Having no object to accomplish but the general good, I 
earnestly entreat your dispassionate consideration of the views here 
presented, and implore you, by the love you bear for your country, 
and its institutions, and by the desire which must glow in every 
patriotic heart, to maintain its liberties, and transmit them, unim- 
paired, to posterity ; to be active and zealous, and united in your 
exertions to bring about a change of men and measures. The 
signs in every quarter are most cheering. We are daily receiving 
great accessions of strength ; and with union, vigilance, and energy, 
you may rest assured that the cause of Harrison and Reform will 
be crowned with triumphant success. 

With sentiments of the highest respect and esteem, 
I remain your obedient servant, 

THOMAS W. CHINN. 



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